Monday, November 12, 2012

Jump off the cliff

Monday, Monday. You know the drill. Sing lead or back up, but sing!

Couldn't get my mom on the phone. I know they charge the cells but the landline should have been working. This is by Joseph Kishore:

With the US elections out of the way, the American ruling class is
moving with remarkable speed to implement a deeply unpopular agenda
centered on trillions of dollars in cuts to health care and other social
programs.The first order of business, to be at least partially
implemented even before the newly elected Congress takes office in
January, is the so-called “fiscal cliff.”The language is chosen
quite deliberately. The image of a “cliff”—first used by Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke in February 2012—is intended to create a sense of
impending catastrophe. The fiscal cliff has become the latest mantra of
the political and media establishment, complete with a continually
updated countdown on CNN. The aim is to foster a crisis atmosphere to
force through measures long desired by the ruling class that would
otherwise be impossible to impose.This “cliff” is an artificial
creation. As a result of legislation agreed to by Congress and the Obama
administration, the end of the year will bring with it the expiration
of Bush tax cuts on all income brackets as well as the implementation of
across-the-board cuts in military and domestic spending (excluding
Social Security and Medicaid).Other measures set to expire at
the end of the year, particularly extended federal unemployment
benefits, have gone unmentioned in the media. Both parties agree on the
need to cut off meager assistance to the jobless.

I'm sure Mom's highlighting it because it's the type of article she'd note and it also has to do with what she was writing about Friday in "Potato Chips in the Kitchen." We should all tell Barack, "Jump off that cliff. We're not scared!"

I'm cold tonight and can't get warm. And I'm a freak for my family. Black Irish, I think it's called. Where you think the worst has happened at the drop of the hat. So I'm wondering what's going on at my folks that they can't answer the phone. I finally called Tony's parents. They're friends with my parents and live next door. So they're going to go check and call me in a minute.

But that was like 25 minutes ago so I'm entertaining bad thoughts and I'm sure everything's fine.

I hope so. I'll write about Fringe tomorrow night because I honestly don't remember it right now.

I saw the WSWS article a couple of hours ago and called and called and --

Okay. That was my dad. There must be a problem with the landline because it's not working. They didn't know that until Tony's parents came over. Then he and Tony's father took the plate off the wall and tried to look at the wires to see if there was a loose wire or something. They couldn't find anything but that's what the long delay was.

So everyone's fine. And I was freaking for nothing.

It's going to be weird when Elaine and I move to Hawaii with our daughter. I'll probably be making calls like that about once a month.

Again, I'm a freak for my family. I'll get worried at the drop of a hat when it comes to my parents, my brothers, my sisters, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles.

Let me note Third (quickly). Dallas and the following worked on the edition:

I agree with Jim. Awful edition. So much time wasted on election pieces that never turned out. (Read Jim's note for more on that.)

The only thing that worked was Ava and C.I.'s TV piece. Now that's amazing. Jim thinks it lifts the whole edition up.

I don't know. I think it explains why Ava and C.I. have this rabid following.

I'm not insulting Ava and C.I. I'm pointing out that they write these amazing pieces of writing over and over and that's why they have a devoted following. Ty sent me an e-mail saying over 13,000 views already on the TV piece. And that was this morning.

They're covering Lily Tomlin, Ellen, Lily lying that she was always out of the closet, Malibu Country, Partners (which is a funny show) and more. It's a great article.

Okay, when I work myself up into a frenzy over my family, I get a bad headache. When it passes, I just want to crawl into bed and that's where I am now.

Monday,
November 12, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, Nouri argues with
Russia though no one's sure what exactly is being said, a new proposal
is made for the rations card system, 10 more people are executed, Debra
Sweet and Cindy Sheehan talk activisim in light of last week's
elections, and more.

The
former top US commander in Iraq from February 2007 to September 2008
was General David Petraeus. Late Friday, Petraeus resigned as CIA
Director citing an affair. If this is indeed the reason he stepped down,
an affair, if that made him subject to blackmail, then he wasn't
properly vetted because he had 'intense' relationships with many female
journalists while he was in Iraq and that should have come up when he
was up for the post of CIA Director.

Today on Democracy Now! -- no link to that trash -- Amy Goodman again spoke with CIA contractor Juan Cole
and supposedly they talked about counter-insurgency but that would
require honesty and you don't get honesty from those currently on the
CIA payroll. Michael Crowley's dishonest at Time magazine but we'll put that down to a reluctance to tell the 'ugly truth' about counter-insurgency.

As Iraq began to stabilize in 2007 and 2008, counterinsurgency got much of the credit. Soon the theory caught fire in Washington: Think tanks hired
and the media spotlighted some of the doctrine's many well-educated
(and combat tested) proponents. The U.S. military developed more counterinsurgency training
programs for its troops, offering tips on things like making nice with
village elders and knowing when to let the enemy escape rather than risk
high civilian combat casualties. This was a form of warfare that even
many liberals (perhaps misguidedly) saw as kinder and gentler enough than the usual shock and awe to tolerate.

Tips
on making nice? That sort of leaves out the violence and intimidation,
doesn't it? Counter-insurgency isn't just handing out a bunch of water
bottles, it's about getting a native people to turn on their own. That
means ratting out fellow Iraqis to foreigner invaders. And the ratting
out? What comes after that? Do the foreign invaders just hand out
daisies? No. They take out the fingered.

Counter-insurgency did not emerge during the Iraq War. It has a long history. It failed in Vietnam (even the CIA admits that)
and it generally does fail. But before that's apparent, a lot of people
are killed and a lot of people are harmed. Crowley gets closer to the
truth in this passage:

Those
sort of targeted assassinations aren't quite the opposite of
counterinsurgency. (That would be carpet-bombing.) But they fly in the
face of the doctrine in multiple ways. Drone strikes -- which often kill
unlucky civilians -- are enraging local populations in countries like
Pakistan and Yemen, risking "damaging and counter productive" effects for U.S. interests. At least one recent would-be terrorist plotting to attack America has said
he was motivated by drone attacks in Pakistan. Counterinsurgency
requires huge numbers of troops to protect and build relationships with
local populations. Drone-based counter-terrorism strategy requires few
if any boots on the ground. Death is rained down anonymously, typically
no explanation or apology for "collateral damage."

Of course, death isn't 'rained down anonymously.' The surivovrs blame the US government for the deaths. As Kimberly Wilder (On the Wilder Side) noted yesterday,
the immediate effect of the Petraeus saga is that he may not be
testifying to Congress about the Benghazi attack that claimed the lives
of Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith and Chris Stevens. The
editorial board of the Orlando Sentinel argues, "Lawmakers
should not let the tabloid-worthy story at the CIA sidetrack them from a
thorough investigation into the security failures in the attack in
Benghazi. They should insist on hearing directly from Petraeus -- even
though he's no longer in charge." The editorial board of the Chicago Tribune agrees,
"Petraeus should volunteer to testify at the hearing. There are already
many questions about what happened in and after the attack in Benghazi,
and his abrupt departure from the CIA has created more suspicion. There
is only one reason for him not to testify -- to spare himself more
public embarrassment."

One
hearing on Benghazi this week will be presided over by Senator Dianne
Feinstein who is the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. She
told Chris Wallace yesterday (on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace)
that she wasn't told about the investigation of Petraeus until Friday,
"We received no advanced notice. It was like a lightning bolt. The way
I found out, I came back to Washington, Thursday night. Friday
morning, the director told me there were a number of calls from press
about this. I called David Petraeus. And as a matter of fact I had had
an appointment with him, at 3:00 that afternoon, and that was
canceled." When were others told, such as the president? Mike Levine, Chatherine Herridge and Judson Berger (Fox News) report
that despite Attorney General Eric Holder being informed Petreaus was
part of an ongoing FBI probe, the White House states "the president did
not find out about the situation until last Thursday." The editorial board of the Washington Post argues that if these are the facts -- with nothing else to be added -- they don't believe Petraeus should have resigned:

THE RESIGNATION of David Petraeus
as CIA director is a serious blow to the nation's national security
leadership, and it comes at an unfortunate moment. With the expected
departure of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and a possible
reshuffling of senior officials at the National Security Council,
President Obama could have benefited particularly from Mr. Petraeus's
knowledge and seasoning as he begins to grapple with second-term
challenges in Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere. Mr. Petraeus
understands those issues as well as any American, and his record of
service as a military commander is without equal in his generation.

Given those facts, some have questioned whether Mr. Obama should have accepted Mr. Petraeus's resignation.
The CIA director was found to have committed no crime. Adultery, which
he confessed to, is not uncommon, including presumably among his
agency's staff. However, in our view the president made the right call.
Mr. Petraeus's failing was not merely an illicit relationship; he
recklessly used a Gmail account to send explicit messages and, as a
result, was swept up in an FBI investigation of alleged cyberstalking. Such behavior would not be acceptable in the private sector, or in the military, as Mr. Petraeus recognized.

The Chicago Tribune editorial notes
that the woman Petraeus had an affair with had access to classified
documents (which Petraeus states must have come from someone else) and
that she gave a speech in October where she declared the attack on the
Benghazi facility was because the CIA was holding Libyans in a secret
prison there.

Moving
over to Iraq where the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is supposed to
run Iraq, not ruin the country. Possibly he misunderstood? He's forever
in search of new enemies to tick off. For example, from Friday's snapshot:

After
the decision last month to buy billions of weapons from Russia, it may
appear Russia and Iraq are getting very close -- and they might be. But
friendly? Do you threaten a friend? AFP reports,
"Baghdad has told Russian energy giant Gazprom to either cancel its
energy contracts in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region or abandon its work
with the central government, a spokesperson said on Friday."

October 9th,
Nouri was strutting across the world stage as he inked a $4.2 billion
weapons deal with Russia. Then something happened 30 days later and the
status of the deal became in question. Was it all just buyer's remorse
over a big-ticket item? Saturday, Mohammed Tawfeeq and Joe Sterling (CNN) reported:

Iraq's
prime minister has canceled a recently signed arms deal with Russia
after "suspicions over corruption" surfaced, his spokesman told CNN on
Saturday.Under the $4.2 billion deal forged last month, Russia would deliver attack helicopters and mobile air-defense systems to Iraq.

Amani Aziz (Al Mada) reported that there are senior Iraqi government officials who are involved with a brother of Russian President Vladimir Putin. All Iraq News noted there are calls for Nouri to step forward and clear his name. Al Rafidayn added
Nouri spokesperson Ali al-Moussawi announced that the deal is off.
New contracts may be needed, he said, because weapons are, but the deal
is off. AP hedged the bets going with language about the deal being "reconsidered" and in "turnaround." Reuters spent the day providing constant updates and in their third one they noted, "In
a confusing exchange, the announcement by Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki's office was immediately contradicted by the acting defence
minister who denied the corruption charges and said the Russian arms
deals were still valid." RIA Novosti reminded, "At
the time the deal was announced in October, the Russian press had
hailed it as the country's largest since 2006. Under the contract,
Moscow is to supply 30 Mil Mi-28NE night/all-weather capable attack helicopters, and 50 Pantsir-S1 gun-missile short-range air defense systems." Al Mada reports today that Iraqiya is demanding Nouri provide a report to Parliament explaining the details of the weapons deal with Russia.

If the deal is off, Nouri looks rather poor on the world stage. But then, he already did as Hiwa Osman (Rudaw) notes today:

Those
who saw the picture released by the prime minister's office of Nuri
al-Maliki inspecting fighter jets by knocking on the metal body of the
plane should not be surprised that he has decided to halt the deal out
of suspicion of corruption.

The
picture should have sounded alarm bells for the Russians, Czechs and
people of Iraq. He seemed like a man shopping for a car in a sales lot,
not a head of state buying strategic weapons. From the start, the deal
did not seem to have been examined well or to have gone through the
proper procurement procedures.

You
don't make a four billion dollar deal, take the bows nationally and
internationally for it, then cancel a few weeks later without your image
taking a huge hit to your image. That's setting charges of corruption
to the side. Those who hoped that, come Monday, something as basic as
whether the deal was on or off would be known were hoping in vain.

The World Tribune states,
"Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki has canceled a $4.2 billion
weapons contract with Russia amid allegations of bribery. But the
Defense Ministry,which signed the deal, has insisted that the project would continue."

The Russian press is as unsure of what's taking place as everyone else. Pravda feels
the need to find an enemy before nailing down any details and they tell
you that the "rumors" flying "could be provoked." By whom? "However,
sources at the government say that there could be a third party involved
in the scandal. 'The United States has made significant efforts to
prevent the transaction, - a source in the Russian government circles
said. - I won't be surprised if they try to prevent or complicate it
post factum. The Americans have not been in Iraq for so many years to
give the arms market of Russia,' another expert from the military and
diplomatic circles said on conditions anonymity." The Voice of Russia quotes
Nouri's spokesperson Ali al-Dabbagh stating, "We will renegotiate the
agreement to put an end to suspiciouns of corruption in the weapons
deal." Olga Denisova (Voice of Russia) observed this afternoon, "At present, the news from Iraq is very contradictory." UPI adds,
"Confusion surrounds Iraq's weekend announcement that it's scrapping a
$4.2 billion Russian arms contract but the feeling is it may be a ploy
by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to renegotiate a more
favorable deal."

Something only slightly less than confusion surrounds the food-ration card system. Last Tuesday,
Nouri's spokesperson Ali al-Dabbagh announced the cancellation of the
program. There was a huge pushback that grew and grew -- from
politicians, from clerics, from the people until Friday
when it really couldn't be ignored. The program has been in place since
1991 meaning that it is all over half of Iraqis know (Iraq has a very
young population, the median age has now risen to 21). It allowed Iraqis
to get basic staples such as flour sugar, rice, etc. As the clerics,
including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, noted, this move would hurt
the people who are already struggling economically. It was also an
idiotic political move to make. In April, provinicial elections will
be held. Nouri's already in campaign mode and this very unpopular move
did not help him there. The smartest thing politically would have been
to go into a full retreat on the proposal and announce that you had
heard the people, to flatter them and make it appear you listened.

Today Alsumaria reports
that the food program is not getting the axe. Instead, the people will
be able to decide if they would like to remain on the existing system or
receive cash. When you tell people they can remain on the ration card
system or they can get cash, when you tell that to people in a bad
economy with many bills, they will be tempted to go for the cash. The
ration card is the better system. But there are bills owed that have to
be paid and there is the hope in people that things have to get better.
So they will tell themselves that they can make it right now with the
cash and that, in a few months or a year, fate will provide and things
will be better. In the meantime, they've been moved off the progam and
the prices -- as Sistani, politicans and the people have noted -- will
sky rocket. So the money will be of little use to them then.

But
they won't be able to go back on the ration card system. The point is
to dismantle the system. That was what the US government tried to do
immediately after the invasion. It's what Nouri and others have done
with the constant reduction of what rations the cards provided. All Iraq News notes
the Parliament has voted to cancel the decision to replace the cards
with cash but it's not clear whether the Cabinet's emergency meeting and
new decision overrides that move by the Parliament. Khalid al-Ansary and Nayla Razzouk (Bloomberg News) covers it in a brief English language story.

All Iraq News notes
the trade unions, including the General Federation of Trade Unions,
want to know which Cabinet members voted to do away with the ration card
system and they also want to know who was involved in the $4.2 billion
weapons deal with Russia -- a deal that may or may not be off. Meanwhile
Al Mada reports the weapons deal and the ration card system move has political blocs are calling for a reshuffling of the Cabinet.

Alsumaria reports that a headless corpse of a woman was discovered in Baghdad. Staying with violence, as noted in the October 15th snapshot, Iraq had already executed 119 people in 2012. Time to add more to that total. Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reported
last night that 10 more people were executed on Sunday ("nine Iraqis
and one Egyptian"). Tawfeeq notes the Ministry of Justice's statement
on the executions includes, "The Iraqi Justice Ministry carried out
the executions by hanging 10 inmates after it was approved by the
presidential council." And, not noted in the report, that number's only
going to climb. A number of Saudi prisoners have been moved into
Baghdad over the last weeks in anticipation of the prisoners being
executed. Hou Qiang (Xinhua) observes, "Increasing
executions in Iraq sparked calls by the UN mission in the country, the
European Union and human rights groups on Baghdad to abolish the capital
punishment, criticizing the lack of transparency in the proceedings of
the country's courts."

October 10th was World Day Against the Death Penalty -- in fact, it was the tenth World Day Against the Death Penalty. Amnesty International noted some countries were seeing a decrease or halt in executions while other were seeing an increase, "In 2012, Iraq,
the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
and Saudi Arabia have actually seen a rise in executions. Almost a
third of those executed in Saudi Arabia in 2012 – 65 by early October –
were alleged drugs offenders, including many foreign nationals.
In Iraq 119 people have been executed this year so far – almost double
the known total for all of 2011." That same day, Human Rights Watch
issued "Iraq: Urgent Need for a Death Penalty Moratorium" which included:

"The
Iraqi authorities' insistence on carrying out this outrageous string of
executions, while unwilling to reveal all but the barest of
information, underlines the opaque and troubling nature of Iraq's
justice system," said Joe Stork,
deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human
Rights Watch. "Rather than executing people, Iraq should focus on
reforming its security and judicial systems to protect its citizens from
increasing human rights violations."Iraqi officials contend,
when challenged about the death penalty, that it is rooted in cultural
tradition. But the prevalence of unfair trials and torture in detention,
particularly in national security and terrorism-related cases, raises
serious concerns and makes the lack of transparency in Iraq's
imposition of the death penalty particularly egregious, Human Rights
Watch said.

The US presidential election was last week. Cindy Sheehan discussed it on Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox with Black Agenda Report's Glen Ford and World Can't Wait's
Debra Sweet. In the excerpt below, Debra's commenting on Glen's belief
that there will not be significant resistance in the next four years to
Barack.

Debra
Sweet: The Democrats came to power and they paralyzed the movement for
the most part -- not the people on this call, at least the ones I know,
were never paralyzed and didn't have the same level of illusions that a
lot of people have had. But, you know, thinking back to 2008, you told
this story the other night when you spoke at Revolution Books
about losing half of your mailing list three days after Obama's
inauguration when you criticized him -- in fact, you called him a War
Criminal -- because he did a drone strike in Pakistan. What did he do
after his re-election? He just did a drone strike in Yemen.

Cindy Sheehan: Right.

Debra
Sweet: Right. And this is a whole picture here of the unbridled --
whether it's Republican or Democrat -- they have complete unity on the
importance of the national security state -- up and down, US domination
being expressed militarily, financially and even ideologically all over
the world. Everybody on the call knows this so I feel it's essential to
say, absolutely, there has not been significant -- There wasn't even
enough resistance, for God's sake, when Bush was in. Otherwise, we would
have driven him out.

Cindy Sheehan: Right.

Debra Sweet: I mean, forgive me, and I am not a Pollyana person --

Cindy Sheehan: Uh-huh.

Debra
Sweet: I am not about to lay down in the face of this horror of the US
continuing to do what it does even in the United States. And I've got to
say that when Glen is talking about there won't be enough significant
resistance coming from the Black community? You know we all have to take
into account that there's an epedimic of mass incarceration that most
specifically and completely effects the Black community, the Latino
community, oppressed communities across the country -- people who are
effected by this. It is so bad that in New York City, 2000 people get
stopped every day for illegal searches -- you know illegal under the
Fourth Amendment of the Constitution -- where NYPD says, 'You know,
basically we're holding you and we're looking through all your stuff and
you're not free to go until we're through with you. This is what
develops the new face of Jim Crow, it's the new face really of slavery
in this society. And all of those things, they were never addressed in
this election and are not even going to be talked about. But they are
the very things that are happening to people that I believe have the
potential to create very significant resistance indeed.

In
fairness to Glen, he was speaking of Black resistance in particular
(although the question the caller asked was about left resistance in
total). Friday, Stan described
a scene that's all too familiar -- where someone who would be against
empire wars suddenly is for them because of Barack's skin color. Glen
referenced incidents like that, to be clear since we're not quoting from
Glen. In terms of Debra's remarks, I applaud them but would have noted
one more targeted group: activists. And not just when they show up at
political party conventions. You see the targeting especially as 90s
drew to a close and the targeting of environmentalists seriously began.
They were kind of the test case. How much could they be targeted without
creating an uproar? Today, we have more activists arrested and serving
hard time today than at any time since Watergate. Think Bradley Manning (still unconvicted) and attorney Lynne Stewart. Targeted for their activism.

Followers

About Me

I'm Michael, Mike to my friends. College student working his way through. I'm also Irish-American and The New York Times can kiss my Irish ass. And check out Trina's Kitchen on my links, that's my mother's site.